21 October 2026

Review: THE LIAR'S BONES, Morag Pringle

  • This edition read on my Kindle (AmazonAU)
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CY5BVT9Q
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Storm Publishing, Publication date ‏ : ‎ 20 May 2024
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 360 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1805083122
  • Book 1 of 3 ‏ : ‎ A Rachel McKenzie Mystery

 Synopsis (AmazonAU)

A murder on an isolated Scottish island brings investigator Rachel McKenzie face-to-face with a terrible secret from the past…

Rachel McKenzie has trust issues. It’s only natural, being the daughter of a killer. When she hears about a woman drowned in suspicious circumstances on the windswept island where her estranged family lives, Rachel is driven to look deeper.

The tight-lipped local sergeant wants Rachel off his island and out of his investigation. But Rachel’s presence is stirring old ghosts and new, and when she makes the connection between the drowned woman and a decades-old murder, she’s stepped right into the sights of a killer who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets safe…

My Take

A promising start to a new series, with a likeable central sleuth, a procurator fiscal with an intriguing past, someone who is willing to go with their instincts, and all the elements you expect from an engaging Scottish mystery: isolation, a storm, and a body or two.

My rating: 4.5

About the Author
Although I have been writing for several years and have had nineteen medical romances and four historical novels published, I have always wanted to write crime. The Liar's Bones is the first. Chunks of my life have inevitably found their way into all my books: jobs - temporary and permanent, places I have visited and lived, stories in the press that have caught my interest people passed on the street or served in a bar. Ultimately however my stories are the product of my imagination.I currently live in Glasgow with my husband. Five interesting facts about me that not everyone knows (and that may have crept into my books): I went to school in South Africa and speak Afrikaans. I spent seven months in the frozen north of Canada where temperatures could plummet as low as -40c. My parents were native Gaelic speakers: my father was a nuclear scientist, my mother a midwife and Health Visitor, or a 'Green lady' as they were known in Glasgow. My mother and her parents and three siblings lived alone on an otherwise uninhabited island for four years. My first job was creating information boards for archaeological sites across Uist in the Outer Hebrides.  

Review: THE BASKETCASE, Tim Sullivan

  • This edition read on my Kindle
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0FNWV6DQ7
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Head of Zeus -- an Aries Book, Publication date ‏ : ‎ 4 December 2025
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 47 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1804545690  

Synopsis (AmazonAU)

Three go up. Two come down...

Detective George Cross receives a very bizarre call from a distressed family after their picnic was horribly interrupted. Just as they were about to tuck into their sandwiches, a human arm landed unceremoniously next to them. Soon, another limb followed.

As they looked up, they were horrified to see a decaying, disarticulating body perched at the top of a very tall tree.

DS George Cross is an exceptional detective but it doesn't take a genius to work out what needs answering first:

How on earth did it get up there?

Discover why everyone loves George Cross in this puzzling short story that can be read as a standalone mystery within the bestselling series. 

My Take

A quick reminder of how good these stories are.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

  • 4.5, THE DENTIST- #1
  • 4.6, THE CYCLIST - #2
  • 4.6, THE PATIENT - #3
  • 4.6, THE POLITICIAN -#4
  • 4.5, THE MONK - #5
  • 4.7, THE TEACHER - #6 
  • 4.6, THE BOOKSELLER - #7
  • 18 October 2026

    Review: THE CURFEW, T. M. Logan

    • this title read as an e-book on Libby through my local library
    • Publisher: Bonnier Books UK, Release 17 March 2022 
    • ISBN     9781838776718 

    Synopsis (Overdrive)

    Your son said he was home. WHY DID HE LIE?

    The utterly gripping up-all-night thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mother, The Dream Home and The Holiday

    The curfew
    Andy and Laura are good parents. They tell their son Connor that he can go out with friends to celebrate completing his exams, but he must be home by midnight.

    The lie
    When Connor misses his curfew, it sets off a series of events that will change the lives of five families forever. 

    The truth?
    Because five teenagers went into the woods that night, but only four came out. And telling the truth might mean losing everything...

    WHAT WOULD YOU DO? 

    My Take

    This is the second novel I have read by this author, but it won't be the last. 

    The story kept me involved (and guessing) right to the very end. It truly was heart in the mouth stuff, and I found myself taking sides! 

    My rating: 4.8

    I have read

    4.5, THE HOLIDAY   

    About the author

    T.M. Logan is a Sunday Times bestseller whose thrillers have sold more than 1 million copies in the UK and are published in 18 countries around the world. The Holiday was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick and will soon be a major TV drama. Formerly a national newspaper journalist, he now writes full time and lives in Nottinghamshire with his wife and two children. Follow him on Twitter @TMLoganAuthor

    Review: THE IMPOSSIBLE THING, Belinda Bauer

    • this edition read as an e-book on BorrowBox through my local library
    • Published: 9 June 2026, Penguin
    • ISBN: 9781804997888
    • Pages: 416 
    • Awards
      2026 Barry Award for Best Novel (nominee)
      2026 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year (longlist) 

    Synopsis (Penguin)

    What could be so important that even a child will risk her life for it?

    On a summer’s evening in 1926, six-year-old Celie Shepherd is hungry and desperate and not where a six-year-old should be. Instead she is dangling from a cliff, far above the sea, reaching out to pocket an impossibly beautiful thing.

    This bold theft will change the course of Celie’s life, and the lives of others.

    One hundred years later, a house is ransacked. The only thing missing: a dusty case containing that same impossible thing.

    What could conceivably be so important that it is stolen again and again (and perhaps yet again . . . )?

    So begins this extraordinary mystery from award-winning Belinda Bauer.

    A taut, wonderfully imagined novel brimming with skulduggery at every turn, The Impossible Thing is a blazing testament to Belinda Bauer’s status as one of our greatest living crime writers.  

    My Take

    This novel combines the historical with crime. The historic theme is one that most readers would not be familiar with: the trade in bird's eggs in the 20th century, now outlawed in the 21st.  The fact that some eggs were so highly prized because of their size and their colour and because they were so difficult to get to. 

     In 1926, a young girl named Celie finds an "impossible" rare scarlet/red guillemot egg on the Yorkshire cliffs. A century later, Patrick Fort (the neurodivergent protagonist returning from Bauer's previous novel Rubbernecker) and his friend Nick set out to track down the historical red egg after Nick's home is ransacked and the artifact is stolen.

    An intriguing and entertaining read. 

    My rating: 4.5

    I've also read

    5.0, BLACKLANDS
    4.8, THE SHUT EYE
    4.8, SNAP  

    Review: THE DIVORCE, Freida McFadden

    • this edition supplied by my local library
    • published by Poisoned Pen Press 2026
    • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1464280184
    • 354 pages
    1.  Synopsis (publisher)

    What is a happily ever after really worth?

    Naomi was living the quintessential love story.

    Boy meets girl. They fall in love, get married, buy a dream house, start a family...

    Then-he kicks her out, hires the city's best divorce lawyers, drains their accounts, and takes up with a 20-something.

    It's a brutal end to the story. Naomi should accept defeat: move into a dingy apartment, get back into the workforce, and piece together the shattered remains of her life.

    Except, why should she?

    Instead, Naomi fixates on her husband's new girlfriend. What begins as cynical curiosity soon twists into obsession-and then into something far darker. As Naomi uncovers secrets she never imagined, she realizes her own life may be in danger.

    But if it keeps her perfect family intact, isn't it worth it?

    In The Divorce, #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author Freida McFadden delivers a razor-sharp, subversive thriller where love curdles into vengeance, and survival becomes the most dangerous game of all. 

    My Take

    I never cease to be amazed at this author's ability to suck the reader in.  And here is a story with a number of twists. 

    It comes as a shock that not every narrator in this story is reliable but it is very hard to decide who you should trust and who not?

    As always an excellent read.

    For those with books clubs, there are some questions at the end to challenge you. And here is one from me: who is the narrator in The Prologue? 

    My rating: 4.5

    I've also read

  • 4.5, THE TENANT
  • 4.5, DO NOT DISTURB 
  • 4.5, WANT TO KNOW A SECRET?
  • 4.7, DEAR DEBBIE 
  • 4.6, THE HOUSEMAID 
  • 4.6, NEVER LIE 
  • 4.6, THE BOYFRIEND 
  • 4.5, DEAD MED 
  • 11 October 2026

    Review: TELL ME SOMETHING TRUE, Michael Robotham

    • this edition published by Letterwing (Hachette Australia 2026)
    • ISBN 978-0-7336-5289-9
    • 421 pages

    Synopsis (publisher)

    The astonishing, emotional epic from Michael Robotham: a mystery, a coming-of-age tale and a love story wrapped into one, set against the simmering tensions of a small Australian town.

    'Do you think this town will ever forgive me?' I ask.
    'Not in a million years.'

    Small towns are quick to anger and slow to forgive, but Arlo Hackett doesn't expect mercy when he emerges from a twelve-year prison sentence and makes his way back to Yulara, a waypoint on Australia's Great Southern Road. The last time Arlo was home, his brother Luke was charged with a terrible crime and Arlo was found guilty by association. 

    His return to the former goldrush town is like cracking open a time capsule full of hatred and violence, along with memories of the people he loved - the ones he couldn't save.

    Yulara wants Arlo gone, or worse, but every insult and humiliation pushes him to confront what really happened all those years ago.

    The truth will shock you, surprise you, and break your heart. 

    My Take

    At last, the book from Michael's "bottom drawer"; the one set in Australia that friends and followers have been hoping to see one day. And it is a story that will stay with you as you rethink some of the plot lines. For me it was about inaction, prejudice, taking the easy way out, and the sort of miscarriage of justice that we all know exists and we hope never to see.

    The characters are strongly drawn, the setting strongly Australian country town. Thank you Michael for a great read. 

    My rating: 5.0 

    About the author

    Michael is the only Australian to twice win the UK's prestigious Gold Dagger Award for best crime novel, for Life Or Death and Good Girl, Bad Girl as well as the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for When She Was Good. Lying Beside You was shortlisted for the Australian Crime Writers Association's Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction 2023. Storm Child, his fourth novel in the globally bestselling Cyrus Haven and Evie Cormac series, was a No. 1 national bestseller in Australia. It was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction 2025. The White Crow, published in 2025, is the second book in his Philomena McCarthy series, following on from the internationally bestselling When You Are Mine.

    Arlo's story, at the centre of Michael Robotham's 20th novel, Tell Me Something True, has held a special place in his heart since he first dreamt of becoming a writer. Four decades later, he's ready to share it with readers for the first time.

    Michael lives in Sydney. 

    I've also read

  • BOMBPROOF
  • SHATTER #3
  • SHATTER (audio)
  • BLEED FOR ME #4
  • 5.0, THE WRECKAGE #5
  • 4.8, SAY YOU'RE SORRY #6
  • 5.0, WATCHING YOU #7
  • 4.8, IF I TELL YOU... I'LL HAVE TO KILL YOU (edit)
  • 5.0, LIFE OR DEATH Shortlisted for the 2015 CWA Gold Dagger
  • 4.8, CLOSE YOUR EYES #8
  • 5.0, THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS
  • 5.0, THE SUSPECT #1 (audio)
  • 4.8, LOST #2 (audio)
  • 5.0, THE OTHER WIFE #9
  • 4.8, GOOD GIRL, BAD GIRL -Cyrus Haven #1
  • 4.8, WHEN SHE WAS GOOD -Cyrus Haven #2
  • 5.0, WHEN YOU ARE MINE - Philomena #1
  • 5.0, LYING BESIDE YOU - Cyrus Haven #3
  • 5.0, THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS
  • 5.0, STORM CHILD - Cyrus Haven #4
  • 5.0, THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS
  • 5.0, WHITE CROW - Philomena #2 
  • Review: THE PEAK, Sam Guthrie

    • This edition read as an e-book on Borrow Box through my local library
    • Imprint: HarperCollins
    • ISBN: 9781460718384
    • Pages: 352
    • Publication Date: 2nd July 2025
    • Shortlisted for the John Creasey First Novel Dagger 2026
    • Shortlisted for Best Debut Fiction, Ned Kelly Awards 2026  

    Synopsis (publisher)

    A nailbiting and unputdownable read, The Peak is a powerfully taut, gripping and fast-moving international thriller that weaves a story of friendship, love and betrayal together with the ruthless geopolitics of China's rise, set in the last 24 hours of the world as we know it.

    'Now I'll tell you what happened, as best I can. No spin. No agenda. If I get something wrong, it's not because I'm being evasive. It's simply because I'm still trying to understand what happened today ... It's to explain, as best I can, what Sebastian has done, and why tomorrow when you wake up, it will be the end of the world.'

    Political hatchet man Charlie will do anything to protect Sebastian, government minister and his best friend since their brutal private school days. Rising to power and prominence through international diplomatic postings and then the rough and tumble of Australian politics, they are as close as brothers - or so Charlie thinks - while both keep the secret that lies at the very heart of their relationship - a secret that in one way or another will change the world.

    But then a single phrase in Mandarin is spoken in Sebastian's ear and he does the unthinkable. As Charlie tries to piece it all together - from their youth spent in Hong Kong to the recent past in Beijing and Washington - things in the outside world start to fall apart too. Planes can't land, the phone lines go down and the power is out. Then the secret intelligence services comes knocking. Charlie wonders, what the hell did Sebastian do?

    From the jostling streets of Hong Kong to Beijing's shadowy halls of power and the backstabbing Machiavellian workings of Parliament House in Canberra, The Peak is a powerful, propulsive and nailbitingly tense international thriller. Written with an extraordinary insider knowledge of China, the realities of global power and the inner dealings of the Australian Government, The Peak has the authenticity and moral complexity of a Le Carre novel and the narrative power of an Australian Robert Harris.

    My Take

    A political thriller, not really my genre of choice, but nevertheless an impressive and thought provoking piece of work. It uses a background of Australian/Chinese relationships, in particular those between a Chinese operative and Sebastian, who over a period of years holds a range of consular positions, and is manipulated through his love for a Chinese woman.

    A bit of a slap in the face for those who think that on the world stage Australia does not matter. 

    My rating: 4.6

    About the author

    Sam Guthrie writes international political thrillers based on his experience working at the nexus of business, politics, and international diplomacy. His character-driven fiction explores the human desires and frailties that shape world-altering events, drawing on an insider's knowledge of the machinations of power, political intrigue, and the geostrategic challenges confronting the global order.

    Prior to publishing his first novel, The Peak, Sam had a twenty-five-year career in international relations serving as a trade envoy to China, an Asia Pacific corporate affairs adviser and political lobbyist and a senior government official. He has worked extensively across Europe, the US and Asia, and has spent close to a decade living and working in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Prague. He has a master's degree in international relations. He splits his time between Canberra and Sydney.  

    Review: THE BODY IN SEVEN DIALS, H. L. Marsay

    • This title read as an e-book on my Kindle (AmazonAU)
    • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0C5BTXTN9
    • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tule Publishing, Publication date ‏ : ‎ 11 October 2023
    • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1959988984
    • Book 1 of 4 ‏ : ‎ The Lady in Blue Mysteries 

    Synopsis (AmazonAU) 

    Inspired by the remarkable life of Dorothy Peto, the Metropolitan Police’s first female superintendent.

    In 1914, the idea of a female police officer is dismissed as absurd, but to a small group of determined women, not impossible.

    With men departing to fight for king and country, women have new opportunities at home. Dorothy Peto and her fellow suffragettes propose forming the Women’s Police Volunteers to assist police keep order. At first, the suggestion is derided, yet the force is stretched thin. As Dorothy and her friends train and organise to help refugees fleeing the war and guide terrorised Londoners to shelter during the Zeppelin raids, the ‘ladies in blue’ gain a grudging acceptance.

    During one nightly bombing raid, Dorothy discovers the body of a beautiful, Belgian refugee in Seven Dials. Convinced the woman was murdered before the bombs fell, Dorothy’s determined to investigate even though the battle-scarred Scotland Yard Inspector remains skeptical of her ideas and enthusiasm. As the list of suspects grows—a British aristocrat, a Belgian gangster and a wealthy German industrialist—Dorothy must outwit the killer, and even some within the WPV.

    My Take

    An obvious point of comparison for me with this series is  

  • 4.4, THE DEATH OF DORA BLACK - #1
  • 4.5, MURDER ON NORTH TERRACE - #2
  • These are books by Australian author Lainie Anderson based on stories about Kate Cocks, South Australia's first policewoman. Those books are also available as e-books. As with Dorothy Peto, World War One gave Kate Cocks and other women a chance to do meaningful work within the existing police force as more and more policemen enlisted and went to war.

    My rating: 4.4

    I've also read

  • 4.4, A LONG SHADOW -#1
  • 4.4, A VIKING SHADOW - #2 
  • 4.4, A GHOSTLY SHADOW -#3
  • 4.4, A ROMAN SHADOW -#4
  • 4.5, A FORGOTTEN SHADOW #5
  • 4.5, A CHRISTMAS SHADOW #6
  • 4.4, THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING FRENCHMAN
  • 4 October 2026

    Review: THE BLUFF, Joanna Jenkins

    • This edition made available to me by my local library as an e-book on Libby
    • ISBN 9781761470646
    • Publisher Allen & Unwin, 4 March 2025
    • #2 in Ruth Dawson series

    Synopsis (publisher) 

    From the bestselling author of How to Kill a Client comes a page-turning rural thriller of loyalties and lies, murder and greed.

    People like Dash didn't die. He was only what? Mid-thirties? Well off. Adored. By some anyway. World at his feet. Well, Myddle at his feet, which was his world.

    Ruth Dawson has taken a break from big city law to fill in for a few months for an old mate in Myddle. How hard can it be? she thinks. Turns out, very hard.

    So when Ruth hears the front door of her office open, she's expecting a weird demand, or a question she doesn't know the answer to... but it's Bea Baulderstone's mum, worried that she hasn't seen her seventeen-year-old daughter for five days, and Constable Gazza Parker is refusing to report the girl missing. Easily fixed, thinks Ruth, and heads off down Myddle's main street to charm Gazza into action.

    But Victoria Baulderstone was right: Gazza doesn't care. That is until Dash Rogers is found at his farm gate, dead from a gunshot wound, and suddenly the town is very interested in Bea's whereabouts.

    And it's not just Bea who can't be found. Dash's wife Evie is AWOL too.

    Then Troy, Evie's protégé and Bea's only friend, also smoke-bombs.

    An unputdownable thriller of deception and greed, The Bluff reveals an enmeshed web of family and community loyalties, set in the lush rural hinterland of east coast Australia. 

    My Take

    This story presents in a challenging fashion with multiple points of View (labelled) and a carefully structured timeline (also labelled), revealing the chronology of events in the manner of a jigsaw puzzle.

    The second in the Ruth Dawson series, and Ruth is required to protect vulnerable young people against a charge of murder. She is holding fort for a colleague on sabbatical in the rural town of Myddle. His practice encompasses all aspects of the law rather than the corporate law that Ruth is accustomed to. Myddle is the town that Roscoe, her former boss and partner has retreated to after the collapse of their law firm in the first novel in this series.

    A very engaging novel. 

    My rating: 4.7

    I've also read

  • 4.5, HOW TO KILL A CLIENT - #1
  • 4.7, BAD NEIGHBOURS - #3 
  • 3 October 2026

    Review: HENRIETTA WHO? Catherine Aird

    • this edition supplied in large print by my local library
    • Published in UK by Chivers Large Print 2000
    • ISBN 0-7540-4124-7
    • 247 pages
    • #2 Sloan and Crosby series

    Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

    After her mother is found dead on a quiet road, possibly the victim of a hit-and-run, events and revelations lead Henrietta to wonder if her mother's death was accidental or murder. 

    My Take

    A short novel, almost a novella, but a police procedural from a much underestimated Golden Age author.

    Henrietta Jenkins lives with a widowed mother in a small village. She is approaching her 21st birthday and is at university. Her mother is killed crossing a road and the police determine it is murder. Henrietta get a rude shock when she finds out the woman she has called her mother is not, and that there is some doubt about who she actually is.

    A quick and interesting read. 

    My rating: 4.5  

    I've also read

  • 4.3, DEAD HEADING
  • 4.4, HIS BURIAL TOO
  • 4.3, A LATE PHOENIX 
  • Review: THE MARGARET CODE, Richard Hooton

    • this edition from my local library
    • published 2025 by Sphere
    • ISBN 978-1-4087-3103-1
    • 337 pages 

    Synopsis (publisher) 

    In this bittersweet, hilarious, and suspenseful crime debut, a grandmother with a failing memory teams up with her grandson to solve the mysterious murder of her friend and neighbor.

    Margaret Winterbottom, 89, has lived on Garnon Crescent her entire life—except for a few years she never talks about. She knows all the neighbors: their lives, their hopes, their heartbreaks. Only recently, Margaret’s memory isn’t what it used to be. She’s sure Barbara, her best friend and neighbor, told her something very important . . . but what?
           ​When Barbara is found dead in an apparent homicide, Margaret is determined to recover the missing memory. Margaret and her grandson, James, begin investigating, but soon strange things begin happening in her home—objects moving and cropping up in odd places, the television turning on by itself. Some believe her memory is worsening, but Margaret knows somebody wants her out of the way because she holds the key to solving the case—if only she could recall where she put it . . . 

    My Take

    In some ways an amusing cozy, and in other ways Margaret's predicament gets very close to the bone. Margaret has a hidden past that she has not told her family about and a brother who has not been around for some time. But she keeps thinking that she is glimpsing him. 

    When her grandson James begins to work on a school project about his grandmother, Margaret and he begin an investigation into who killed Barbara, and also to recover Barbara's last words to Margaret.

    A good read. 

    My rating: 4.4

    About the author

    Richard Hooton has received numerous prizes for his short fiction. After a career in journalism, Richard now works in communications. The Margaret Code, his debut novel, is inspired by the author’s relationship with his grandmother, who died of Alzheimer’s when he was a teenager. Richard lives in Manchester, England. 

    1 October 2026

    Review: THE WICKED SISTER, Karen Dionne

    •  this edition supplied by my local library
    • published by Sphere (Amazon) 2020
    • ISBN 978-0-7515-6742-7
    • 285 pages 

    Synopsis (publisher)

    A startling novel of psychological suspense, as two generations of sisters try to unravel their tangled relationships between nature and nurture, guilt and betrayal, love and evil.

    You have been cut off from society for fifteen years, shut away in a mental hospital as punishment for the terrible thing you did when you were a child.

    But what if nothing about your past is as it seems?

    For a decade and a half, Rachel Cunningham has chosen to lock herself away in a psychiatric facility, tortured by gaps in her memory and the certainty that she is responsible for her parents' deaths. But when she learns new details about their murders, Rachel returns, in a quest for answers, to the place where she once felt safest: her family's sprawling log cabin in the remote forests of Michigan.

    As Rachel begins to uncover what really happened on the day her parents were murdered, she learns - as her mother did years earlier - that home can be a place of unspeakable evil, and that the bond she shares with her sister might be the most poisonous of all.. 

    My Take

    Several ghastly threads in this novel: at least one of the women in this story is a psychopath but which one? Other reviews have labelled it atmospheric, chilling, thrilling. It is all of those things and more. Is it credible? I hope not, but part of me suspects that is possible.

    What do you do if you learn that your daughter is a psychopath? How do you protect and manage her? And others?

    My rating: 4.5 

    I have already read 4.4, THE MARSH KING'S DAUGHTER 

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